shell, but it was only when we were withdrawn to the 'rest area' that we
felt any sense of freedom to settle down and take stock of ourselves.
Both Colonel Duncan and Colonel Dyson, to whom I owe countless
kindnesses, were keen disciplinarians, and Major Everingham, the
Quartermaster, imperturbable, efficient, could really perform almost
superhuman feats. A man can only know his own department, and in mine
the standard of a battalion is shown by its attitude to religious
observances. A bad battalion finds too many engagements to turn out in
any strength on Sunday. I used to feel so proud as the old Royals, every
available man on parade, would march up behind their pipes and drums,
alert, well-groomed, punctilious in all the minor forms that are so
important an evidence of a battalion's condition. In rest billets we all
got to work; there were marches and manoeuvres, cinematographs and
cross-country runs, football matches and boxing competitions. These men
when stripped were so much more beautiful than in their clothes. Of how
many in civilian occupations could that be said? The battalion would be
refitted; a brewer's great vat was commandeered for a bathing-place;
the village school was turned, every evening, into a recreation room;
and a communicants' class was started. Not for the first time I longed
for a brief, clear statement of our Church's faith. The cumbrous
complicated Catechisms and Confessions are magnificent monuments, but
they are worse than useless under such conditions. A _Credo_ which could
be written on a blackboard and pointed to as the Church member's
essential Confession of Faith, to be developed and expanded according to
the need and circumstances, would be a real power in a chaplain's hands.
The men's behaviour in billets--ramshackle barns for the most part--was
almost exemplary. Only once or twice small episodes occurred in
connection with hen-roosts, and on one occasion a sucking-pig was
slaughtered amid its brethren at the dead of night. It must have been a
temporary madness that possessed the author of this escapade, for he had